1. Imperial Journal of Interdisciplinary Research (IJIR)
Vol-2, Issue-5, 2016
ISSN: 2454-1362, http://www.onlinejournal.in
Imperial Journal of Interdisciplinary Research (IJIR) Page 921
Intelligent Power Meter using GSM
network and Android Application
Shan K M1
, Jojo P John2
, Prof. Alpha Vijayan3
1
Final year Btech Student
2
Final year Btech Student,3
Professsor CSE Dept., MBCCET, Peermade.
Abstract: Now a days everything is being automated.
The electrical energy provider still uses traditional
methods for reading the energy consumed by
individual consumer. The proposed system
automatically reads the energy consumed and send it
to the electricity provider using the short messaging
services (SMS) and Android app.
1. Introduction
Traditional Electricity meter reading for
electricity usage and billing is done by human
workers from home to home and building to
buildings. This requires huge number of workers and
long working time to achieve complete area data
collection and billing. Human workers billing are
prone to reading error as sometime the houses
electric meter is placed where it isn't easily
accessible. Labor billing job is sometime also
restricted and slowed down by bad environ-mental
condition. Paper billing has the tendency of losing in
the post box. The increased development of
residential housing and industrial buildings in the
developing country such as for example, India
require more human workers and longer working
hours to complete the usage reading task. This
increases the energy provider operation costs for
meter reading. In order to get efficient meter reading,
reduce billing error and operation costs, Automatic
Meter Reading (AMR) system play a main role to
address the above mentioned problems. AMR is an
effective mean of data collection that allow
substantial saving through the reduction of meter re-
read, good data accuracy, allow frequent reading,
improved billing and customer service, more timely
energy profiles and usage trends updates, and better
deployment of human resource.
With the advent of digital technology, electro-
mechanical meter is continuously replaced by digital
electronic meter. Digital energy meter offers greater
convenience for the implementation and establish
automatic meter reading system electronically.
Efficiency and reliability of retrieving meter reading
in the AMR system was a major challenge. Various
AMR methods and technologies using Power Line
Carrier communications, Supervisory Control and
Data Acquisition (SCADA), telephone modem,
Internet, Ethernet, RF Module, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and
ZigBee were established and developed to provide
and demonstrate the efficiency, reliability and
effectiveness of AMR.
The above mentioned methods are either too
expensive to implement, require complex setup of
infrastructure, short operating distant and still require
field intervention of hu-man workers or prone to
error and reliability issue due to noise in the
transmission line or weather condition. With the
rapid development of Global System Mobile (GSM)
infra-structure and Information Communication
Technology in the past few decades have made
wireless automatic meter reading system more
reliable and possible. presented in this paper takes
advantage of the available GSM infrastructure
nationwide coverage in the country and the Short
Messaging Service(SMS) cell broadcasting feature to
request and retrieve individual houses and building
power usage meter reading back to the energy
provider wirelessly. The Store and for-warding
features of SMS allow accurate meter reading deliv-
ery when GSM signal is affected by poor weather
condition. The stored SMS is archive in the mobile
operator and can be later retrieve for billing
verification purpose.
2 System Overview
2.1 Existing System
In the existing system, the human operator
visits every consumers and take the readings
manually. But in countries like India, where the
number of consumers are very large, a large number
of human operators are required for this operation,
and it is also a time consuming operation. This
increases the operational cost of the system. And the
printed bills are not reliable, there is a chance of
losing or damaging of the printed bill may cause
difficulties for the consumers and authorities.

2. Imperial Journal of Interdisciplinary Research (IJIR)
Vol-2, Issue-5, 2016
ISSN: 2454-1362, http://www.onlinejournal.in
Imperial Journal of Interdisciplinary Research (IJIR) Page 922
2.2 Proposed System
The intelligent power meter system consists
of one Digital energy meter and an external circuit
for collect the meter reading and communicate with
the server. Along with the hardware part a web portal
and an android application is also developed. Meter
readings are passed to the server through the GSM
module connected to the energy meter. The external
circuit also provides an option to cut the power
supply to each consumers from anywhere in the
world. Another feature is theft detection, which helps
to detect unauthorized power consumption from
home or commercial buildings.
In energy provider side, a web application is
provided. In this portal the administrator can add
consumers, update the unit cost for energy, generate
monthly bills, send notifications. The administrator
can filter the users who are not paid the bill after a
fixed time duration and cut their power supply from
his office, without visiting the user’s location.
An android application is developed for
consumers, after login to the app consumers can
request the meter reading anytime they want from
anywhere, pay the monthly bills online, cut the
power supply and reconnect. The warnings, and
notifications from the energy provider is displayed
with the help of this app.
2.3 Figures
Fig. Energy meter module
Fig. Basic Block Diagram
3 Implementation
We are connecting an external circuit to the
energy meter instead of modifying the current
architecture. We are using PIC16F877A
microcontroller. Other components used in this
module are Global System for Mobile (GSM), relay,
LCD display, and a buzzer. A pulse is generated from
the energy meter after every unit of consumption.
This pulse is given as an input to the energy meter
module, based on this pulse, a count is incremented
and displayed on the LCD display as units
consumed. This count is also transferred to the
mobile application and to energy provider server
through the GSM module connected. The
communication between the server, mobile
application and the energy meter is done through the
GSM module by Short Message Service(SMS). If the
command for reading current consumption arrived at
the GSM module, the current value of the unit is
send to a fixed mobile number registered with the
meter. We can also cut the power supply by sending
SMS to the GSM module connected with the energy
meter. After receiving the message for disconnect the
power, a signal is passed to the relay and it turns off,
similarly reconnecting also done with the module.
This circuit also provides alerts about over usage,
energy theft. Over usage is calculated by comparing
the usage in a fixed time period and theft detection is
done by monitoring the usage after the Theft check
button is pressed.
Admin side is a web portal where the
administrator can add users, update cost per unit,
filter unpaid users, cut the power supply. The
administrator assigns a user id and password for the
user for accessing the mobile application. The
readings from the energy meter will be updated in the
energy provider server with the help of GSM
module. After generating bills, the admin can see the
users with payment status. If they are not paid, then
the administrator can disconnect the power supply to
the corresponding user by sending Messages to the
energy meter.
An android application is developed for
consumers, so that they can login to it using a user id
and password provided by the administrator. The
Consumer can request the meter readings by simply
pressing a button in the app. The bill amount to be
paid for power consumption is automatically
generated in the App. The consumer is provided with
the facility to remote disconnect and reconnect to
mains. Another feature is that; the consumer can
make the online payment of electricity bill through
the App. With the help of a GSM module,
notifications about over usage at peak time and
detection of any malpractices are also provided in the
android App. The consumer can register complaints
and can also cut the power supply for unwanted time.

3. Imperial Journal of Interdisciplinary Research (IJIR)
Vol-2, Issue-5, 2016
ISSN: 2454-1362, http://www.onlinejournal.in
Imperial Journal of Interdisciplinary Research (IJIR) Page 923
The users get warnings or notifications to the
consumer about consumption, payment date etc.
2. 4 System test approach
For the demonstration of the Intelligent Power
Meter, we use a GSM modem uses normal SIM card
mobile number. The Intelligent power meter is powered
up from a socket outlet and 100W light bulbs are used
to monitor the user’s power consumption load and the
meter capture the reading. A time period of 5 minute is
set as the over usage cutoff time. Tested the power
meter reading, power disconnecting and reconnecting
by the android application and payment gateway is
tested by creating a local server and connect the mobile
with the server through a wireless network.
3. 5 Future work
We are planning to expand the technology used
in energy meter to the power distribution
transformers. So that we can cut the power supply
from anywhere in case of any emergency or
maintenance, find areas with power distribution
failure, over usage areas, etc.
4. 6 Conclusion
A complete and tested prototype of the
Intelligent Power Meter system was built to
demonstrate an automated power meter reading
system using GSM network. The Intelligent power
meter system takes the advantage of existing GSM
network that have full coverage of all housing and
industrial area all over the country which lead to low
implementation cost, and is simple to install. The
Intelligent power meter system proven to provides
reliable, effective and efficient automatic power
meter reading, online billing, and notification
through the use of GSM network and android
application, thus reduce human effort in meter
reading and this method is very economical and time
saving.
Acknowledgment
The authors gratefully acknowledge the
contributions of Jojo P John, Prof. Alpha Vijayan
for their effort, time and work on this project
which made this publication possible.
REFERENCES
[1] AUTOMATIC POWER METER READING SYSTEM
USING GSM NETWORK, H. G. RODNEY TAN,
IEEE, C. H. LEE AND V. H. MOK, IEEE
[2] GSM BASED AUTOMATIC METER READING
SYSTEM USING ARM CONTROLLER BHARAT
KULKARNI ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, P.V.P.I.T.
BUDHGAON.